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Got the PS5 version in anticipation of the future VR update.

Atomic Heart Another Game Pass game. Before I go any further I'll address the elephant in the room and acknowledge that this game was made by Russians, who are pretty much nobody's friend right now for obvious reasons. I will not speak on the matter here other than to say that people's buying decisions are ultimately their own but I certainly understand if somebody chooses not to play this out of principle. It's not like I actually bought it either way so I did not worry about that too much myself. Putting that aside, I have mixed feelings on this game. It's basically Russian Bioshock and while it has some cool world building and lore and some design choices I really liked such as being able to refund your upgrades at any time to try out another build, there were also some choices made that are so baffling it made me wonder if these developers had ever played a video game before. Why can't I make a custom waypoint on the map or even zoom it in unless I'm at a terminal? Why do half of the powers feel useless? Why do they constantly throw me against large groups of enemies and then not give you a block or parry option with the melee? There is a dodge but it is not nearly good enough on its own and if you get trapped in a corner there is not much you can do to save yourself unless you have telekinesis equipped other than flail your melee weapon and hope they die before you do. Some of the boss fights are cool, but others are shit and unfortunately the worst boss of the game is fought three times. You can scavenge for resources by just holding down a button and sweeping it across an area but they compensate for that by making all the upgrades cost more than I think they should. Sometimes it feels like for every positive there is a negative to balance it out. On the plus side, it has a great soundtrack. You can thank Mick Gordon for that one. And just to put it out there, he donated his fee for working on the game to a Ukrainian charity. Also, while the story and the universe of this game has potential, the main character is written like a complete douchebag with terrible dialogue. He has a stupid catchphrase ("crispy critters!") that he says all the time. It is a fetch that they are desperately trying to make happen and it is never going to happen and every time he said it I cringed. He is also really stupid and gullible and he is the main thing that brings down what could otherwise be a decent plot for this kind of game. And for the record, no, the plot is not Soviet propaganda. They hammer in how much communism sucks about as hard as George Orwell does. They don't have many nice things to say about capitalism either. I don't know, the game is okay. But just okay. Maybe with some QOL patches I could see myself giving it one extra point. I still would not really recommend buying it but it might be okay to kill time if you have game pass.